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Apple and Samsung Team Up (Again) for iPhone 7

Apple (AAPL) and Samsung have had their share of clashes. Apple sued the South Korean tech giant and won $1 billion in damages, stemming from allegations Samsung knocked off the iPhone and iPad. And they’re currently embroiled in another lawsuit, wherein Samsung is claiming Apple has infringed on patents they hold.

But despite their litigious past, the two companies have just signed on to work together on Apple’s flagship product. Samsung will produce the chips for the tentatively named iPhone 7, slated for release in 2015. The chips, A9, will be an improvement over the A6 used in the iPhone 5.

In working with Apple, Samsung plays both sides of the American smartphone market, as they also are heavily involved with Google (GOOG) and the popular Samsung Galaxy smartphones. Samsung has a long history of producing chips for Apple, though their partnership had waned (understandably so) in the wake of the multiple lawsuits. Apple turned to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM) to produce the A8 chips. And it seemed, per rumors in June, that Apple had retained the services of TSM for the A9. It’s possible that Apple could be utilizing both companies.

This coincides with news that Apple is amping up production on the forthcoming iWatch. They announced July 13 that they are embarking on a hiring frenzy to address design problems with the wearable tech. And in keeping with consumer preference trends favoring more affordable tech, Apple is ramping up production ona retina iPad Mini for 2014, and slashing prices on its two tablets: dropping the price of the 32GB from $499 to $349 and the 64GB from $649 to $499.

Apple's stock is up .67 percent to hit 429.22 a share. Though it's up 3.51 percent over the last five days, the stock is still down 19.31 percent on the year.

(trader disclosure: the author is long Apple.)

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